Android 4.4.4 update rolling out for LG G Pad 8.3 GPE
The LG G Pad 8.3 Google Play Edition might not be available to pick up on the Play Store anymore, but LG and Google are still giving it some update love. While users were pretty disappointment and looking for answers as to why every other GPE device was seeing Android 4.4.3 and they weren’t, users […]
T-Mobile whitelists more apps from using your data Allotment
Not everyone on T-Mobile sports an unlimited high-speed data plan. For the rest of us, we sometimes have to watch what we have left in our allotment. Not out of fear of exceeding it and having a costly bill, because T-Mobile did away with overage. More so because we still want the high-speed service and […]
Google releases YouTube Creator Studio to the Play Store
If you are one of the millions of YouTube creators out there that manage your own channel on YouTube, your life just got a little bit easier today. Google has, finally, released YouTube Creator Studio to the Google Play Store. The app makes managing your channel a heck of a lot easier when mobile. The […]
ASUS reportedly working on budget friendly Android Wear Device
It has been about 24 hours or so since the first two commercially available Android Wear smartwatches made their appearance in the Play Store. The LG G Watch hit with a price tag of $229 in a traditional black or the in a white/gold offering. The other was the Samsung Gear Live. Very similar to […]
Apple Rolls Out Section for ‘Best New Game Updates’ on App Store [iOS Blog]
Apple has added a section for the “Best New Game Updates” on the App Store, allowing users to view recently updated titles from a number of developers. Notable updates to games were previously included in the “Best New Games” section which now includes more recently released titles.
Titles listed under the new section include Plants vs. Zombies 2, FarmVille 2, and Maleficent Free Fall, which recently received updates that added new enemy types, new animals, and new stages, respectively. Apple also appears to be showcasing a mix of titles from both major developers such as EA and smaller indie developers.
Last month, Apple rolled out a new monthly App Store section highlighting the best apps, games, and updates, joining the other highlighted sections for “App of the Week” and “Editor’s Choice”. Apple also debuted an “Indie Game Showcase” section on the App Store in March which showcases the best games from independent developers.
Engadget Daily: living in Google’s world, the faces of Android Wear and more!
Today, we take a look at the Android L Developer preview, compare the three faces of Android Wear, evaluate a $1,000 bread-making robot and dive into the hyper-connected world of Google. Read on for Engadget’s news highlights from the last 24 hours.
The three faces of Android Wear, compared
Android Wear is making waves this summer in the form of three new smartwatches: the LG G Watch, Samsung Gear Live and Motorola Moto 360. Read on for our breakdown of each wrist-worn device and its implementation of Google’s wearable platform.
We just played with Android’s L Developer Preview
Android L is just a developer preview for now, but it’s a forthright indicator of the OS’ uber-connected future. With over 5,000 APIs, a new set of guidelines called Material Design and 64-bit support, Google’s provided a great education of its next mobile OS update.
This robot bakes the world’s most expensive flatbread
This is the Riomatic: a smart kitchen appliance that bakes a really fancy type of flatbread. Users must simply keep tabs on its water, flour and oil hoppers, and voila, it’ll spit out fresh bakes every two minutes or so. The catch? It costs $1,000.
Living in a Google world: Why Android L means you’ll never have to disconnect
As this year’s Google I/O conference came to a close, one fact became absolutely certain: Android is going to follow you everywhere. Read on as Sarah Silbert investigates Android L and its implications on Google’s ecosystem.
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Filed under: Misc
Chromecast’s ultrasonic device pairing is much simpler than it sounds
It turns out that there’s more than one way for guests to join in on your Chromecast party. In addition to accessing Google’s streaming stick via an onscreen PIN code, friends can pair their devices to your living room entertainment setup via inaudible ultrasonic frequencies. Apparently, all one needs to do to enable this is allow the Chromecast to support nearby devices, and it’ll push the necessary tones through your flat-screen’s speakers, which said gizmos will receive and sync with. If it sounds simple, that’s the whole point. As Gigaom tells it, Chromecast engineering manager John Affaki says that this is an effort to make using the HDMI dongle in a social setting much easier. Whether you can trust friends enough for them to not stealth-add Slayer’s “Angel of Death” to the next party playlist is up to you, though.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, Google
Via: 9to5Google
Source: Gigaom
LG G3 review: Great hardware meets simplistic interface
The LG G3 will begin the global roll-out on June 27th, which will go first to Asian countries in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Then it’s headed to the remaining Asian markets, Europe/United Kingdom, and the Middle East with other regions in July. Although a date has not officially announced by any major carrier in North America, speculations say roll-outs will take place starting in Canada and the United States starting with shipments being sent to these carriers in early to mid July, official carrier releases by the middle of August.
This phone is going toe to toe with the top devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, Sony Xperia Z2, OnePlus One, etc.
Just to give our readers a sneak peek of our thoughts on the LG G3, we’re giving you an early preview via a quick review. As we spend more time with the device, we’ll update our review.
At First Glance & Design
The G3 features a clear display with thin bezels. On the rear is a metallic back plate, with an interesting camera/flash setup. Top of the line hardware and software make this beauty something incredibly irresistible.
On the back, sadly there are no healing properties, such as on the G Flex. The same styled rear-facing buttons are drastically improved. The rear battery door is mostly plastic, but features a very thin layer somewhere inside the plate.
Great hardware is met with a simple interface, leaving the drama behind for a better User Experience.
Hardware
The Quad Core 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, 3GB RAM, and Adreno 330 GPU ensure that can power through almost anything without delay. The AnTuTu X Benchmark rates this model at about 35,500 with 3rd party background processes running.
The removable battery and expandable SD storage enhance the options that users have, especially compared to the G2 and Nexus 5 among others.
Display
The LG G3 utilizes a beautiful crisp 2K/Quad HD (4x 720P) [2,560×1,440/538ppi] display. Colors are wonderful, even if not perfectly accurate and slightly over saturated. Not all content is really optimized for such a sharp display, however pixels are nearly invisible. Surprisingly, QHD doesn’t have any WOW factor like when 1080P mobile devices were released, an there is slight improvement over 1080P.
Software & UI/UX
LG has really toned down their user interface a lot. The icons are flat and somewhat minimalist, while featuring the common add-on apps such as LG Health (fitness tracker), QSlide, and QRemote that you commonly see variants of this with other flagships. The LG themed Android 4.4 layout is very clean.
The KnockOn feature is one we found to be really handy – it allows you to knock twice on your screen to wake it up. Knock code is a security feature that allows you to use up to 80,000 combinations in different quadrants.
Camera
There is a 13MP camera with laser focus and optical image stabilization on the rear, which does surprisingly well with low light scenarios. The laser auto focus is met with timing of less than a blink of an eye. Images taken have been pleasant but not perfectly crisp when zooming in.
On the front of the screen, you’ll find a 2.1MP camera. LG made a neat little feature that allows you to have “flash” for a “selfie” by shrinking your view area, and creating white boarders to brighten your environment.
Battery Life
We should note that our testing was done with the Korean F400K variant unlocked on T-Mobile USA, so that can hurt battery life, as the device is not optimized for T-Mobile, which is something you should take into consideration.
Battery life has varied quite a bit. The Quad HD/Wide 2K Display is sadly quite power hungry. The device has lasted an average of 3.5hours of heavy screen on only usage, 5-8 hours with normal moderate usage and 9-12hours with light usage. The 3000mAh removable battery is quite large, but until we get our hands on a US version, we can’t say for sure what’s causing the G3 to lose battery so much more than what was promised by LG.
There are options for LG’s battery saving mode which will turn off NFC, WiFi, Brightness, and more. All of these settings are user configurable for when your battery reaches a certain point per your settings. While not as extensive as battery saving options found in the HTC One M8 or Samsung Galaxy S5, they still help save that precious battery power. We wish LG would really learn from Samsung and HTC when it comes to power saving.
Overview
What we’ve noticed is that LG has taken the form factor of the G2, improved it, and seemingly taken cues from the best flagships yet and combined them. The best of LG G2, Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, and OPPO’s (secretly owned) OnePlus One, have been spun into the LG G3, with the only thing left to wish for is out of the box wireless Qi charging (available almost everywhere but South Korea and the United States), and an IP67 rating. The G3 pretty much has it all.
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We have been completely impressed by LG here. They have finally proven that they can compete with the tough high-end Android mobile market. You can find the unlocked international version of the amazing LG G3, jack of all trades, at the 28Mobile Phone Shop.
The post LG G3 review: Great hardware meets simplistic interface appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Google I/O Extended, a great experience for a fraction of the price
While we all wish we could go to Google I/O in San Francisco to see it in person and score some awesome swag, it’s not possible with the limited number of tickets and high cost.
In past years, I was joining just about everyone that couldn’t make it to the event while streaming it from home, but this year I had the opportunity to attend two Google I/O Extended events, one in Denver and one in Boulder. The events were just two of the hundreds all around the world and were essentially a streaming event with food, prizes and more.
The first that I went to was the Denver event, where I watched the keynote from and it was setup by a group of people, including Mark Scheel, a Denver-based developer who founded and is the president of Digital Construction, a software consultancy. Scheel is also the Android Platform Lead at a successful Denver area app company, whose primary product is a medical consumer app that will pass 5 million Android downloads from the Google Play store in 2014 and he wrote the book “Software Development for Google Glass.”
Scheel said Tuesday that about 70 people registered for Google I/O Extended Denver. Tickets were sold for between $10 and $20, depending on when you bought them.
“Last year I went to the I/O Extended event in San Francisco and saw what a cool event it was. I was really surprised with the excitement for it. We sold out way ahead of time.”
Separating itself from the others, the Denver event also had a semi-working Android Wear device. Scheel said they were “pretty confident” they were the only I/O Extended event in the country with an actual Wear device. The device was a smartwatch imported from China that was hacked to run the SDK.preview.
Google I/O Extended Denver included two guest speakers, Dan Ambrisco who talked about the Android Wear SDK and Therese Pocrnick, who presented “Confessions of an Agile Coach.” Ambrisco not only talked about how to get the SDK up and running, but also about how apps should be designed for Android Wear devices and showed off a Wearable Speedometer smartwatch app.
With the hacked Android Wear device, Ambrisco was able to show off how to navigate around the IU, but said it couldn’t do much else.
Along with live streaming of the I/O and the presentations, there was also breakfast and lunch for all attendees, including local soda and craft beer, and a raffle to chance off a Chromebook, Sphero robotic balls, Chromecasts, $500 Google Cloud credit, t-shirts, water bottles, signed Google Glass books and more.
Among the many sponsors for the event were iTriage, GDG Northern Colorado and Google.
In the afternoon, I headed back to Boulder (where I live) and was able to check out Google I/O Extended Boulder. This free event, which required a ticket through Eventbrite, was held at the Google Boulder office and kicked off around 9 a.m. While it was primarily a streaming event as well, there were also tours of the office given and some quizzes that attendees could take to win prizes. The prizes were similar to those seen at the Denver event and included a Chromebook, Chromecast, Nexus 7 and a Google messenger bag filled with other goodies. Breakfast and lunch were provided as well as some appetizers and drinks at an evening reception where attendees could meet some Googlers.
All attendees at Google I/O Extended Boulder received swag before leaving – a t-shirt, Google Play credit and a 5,200mAh power bank.
Overall, it was an enjoyable day and if you ever get the chance to attend an I/O Extended event if you can’t make it to San Francisco, it’s definitely a worthwhile experience.
Check out video below of the speakers. I apologize that it’s not the best quality and part of the second speaker got cut off.
The post Google I/O Extended, a great experience for a fraction of the price appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Install the new Material Design keyboard from Android L, root required
If you have a Nexus 5 or 7 you can install the Android L Developer Preview, but if you don’t have either of those devices or want to stay on a more stable ROM, you can still experience some of the future of Android now.
Bejunk over at XDA ported the keyboard and shared a flashable .zip that will give you the new keyboard with the Material Design theme.
The keyboard is said to work on “probably all ROM’s based on 4.4.x.”
If you have the Google Keyboard installed, you should uninstall it or delete it from /system/app, then download the zip and flash it in either ClockworkMod or TWRP recovery.
Once it’s installed, go to Keyboard Settings, Advanced (Expert) Settings and select “Material” in color scheme.
If you have any issues flashing the .zip, there are also manual instructions at the source link below.
VIA: XDA
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